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Michael_Saint
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Taking this quite personally. Have your parents paid the whole she-bang?
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Michael_Saint
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This was not my point. I was saying that a lot of people “rush into” marriage because they are somewhat desperate, don’t know how to be single and happy at the same time, can’t exercise self-control, can’t handle the virtue of patience, etc.
I am not saying every 21 year old that marries is in that situation. That is not true.
By the way, this lack of self-control and patience is quite a problem among teenagers and young adults whose parents have paid for their whole education and have bought them cars and pay for the gas too!
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Michael_Saint
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Ah, you misunderstand me. I am a big believer in marriage, and think it’s a great vocation. Read my previous post to see what my point was in saying this.Michael, get out and see the world. I checked in at the local crisis center where I volunteer and excepting the young highschool/college students, all the volunteers are married. I took a mental count of all the people who protest at the local abortion clinic and again, excepting the young’uns who are yet to choose a vocation, everyone is married. (Oh, and excepting the volunteer priests.)
If you think examples of people in the past are a good way to make your argument, what in the world do you have to say about Mary?
Do you believe marriage is a hindrance to sacrifice and service? That is definitely a red flag, I hope you aren’t dating!
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hasikelee
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Are you saying you retract that post?
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Michael_Saint
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Actually, I have seen the real world, and have lived in it for some time now. Your assumption, I am afraid, is incorrect.
The problem as I see it is that I truly see the world with a Catholic lens, and so many in the Church today are too influenced by “secularism” and thus think I’m from a different planet.
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Michael_Saint
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This post is in complete harmony with the other post. Where do you see a discrepancy? Help me to see my own apparent contradiction, SVP?
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hasikelee
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You present an argument and examples to support your argument. The argument appeared to say that, in your opinion, late marriages are a better idea as people should remain single longer to give service to God.
I couldn’t help but respond as I find it funny that service and marriage are separate in your mind and that you believe one would have to be single to devote themselves to service for God.
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Michael_Saint
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My initial post stated: “Does God call some to marriage at 21 or 22? No doubt about it”. I am totally for people who marry young, if it is indeed God’s will. The post was a response to an insult that was thrown my way, where it was implied how unfortunate it was that I would be “35 and half-dead” before I was married. In other words, the statement was that being married at 35 was a silly idea. I was showing how this was contrary to the lives of the Saints and the witness of Scripture.
The other point I was trying to make is that SOME people probably DO marry too young, and do so because they are impatient, they cannot exercise self-control, they don’t believe it is possible to stay single for a time and be happy, they see being single as a “curse” that we should get rid of as soon as we can rather than a blessing and state of life that God wants us to authentically live for a time, etc. What I was trying to say is that we should be more resigned to God’s will with regards to our vocation, and be productive with our single life if that is what He calls us to for a time, instead of trying to “escape” it by marrying whoever might be floating around at a time where we feel like the “loneliness” of our singleness is nothing but a curse and a burden that we should eliminate from our life even if it means marrying someone who does not meet our reasonable standards.
I don’t think “service” and “marriage” are separate. That is not true. My point is that people make too much of a distinction between “single life” and “marriage” - that the latter is the “real vocation”, and the former is a curse and some kind of cruel “limbo” rather than a state of life God wants us to make the most of.
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hasikelee
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Isn’t the idea of a committed single life fairly new in our culture? Or in any culture? It is always a societal pressure to find a mate and reproduce, sustaining the race at large and the community in which the couple lives.
Marrying young has its impediments, but those are usually due to cultural nuances and not the inherent aspect of the age. For example, many other cultures encourage marriage at very young ages and even America’s history has very young marriages (14years for example).
Whereas, marrying late in life has inherent implications on the natural reproductive process besides sociological and psychological impacts. This is something we are working through right now, with the average age for marriage increasing more and more. Infertility, genetic defects, complications during pregnancy, low sperm count, etc all have a relation to age.
Sociologically, marriage at a later age in our culture represents a clash between two professional, single people who now have to settle down and learn to live together.
There is also the aspect of prior sexual relationships, although that can wait for another thread as I’m sure it’s not a topic for you.
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RachelB
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Hi. I don’t know if you are still looking for encouragement in this or not, because I don’t want to swim through the eddies of this thread. But just in case you are:
I married my hubby at 19. He was 18. We are now 26 & 27. We have “grown up” together, learned to pay bills together, attended college together. Basically, instead of becoming adults and then adapting to each other’s ways, we became adults together. When you marry young, you end up learning a lot of things the hard way instead of learning with a safety net. We are expecting our third child now, and we LOVE having kids. Obviously not everyone is called to the vocation of marriage, but for those that are, it is amazing and wonderful. I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you are having doubts, it is possible that God is not calling you to marriage at this time. But if you are just looking for reinforcement, the vocation of marriage and family is sooo rewarding, and I personally am grateful that I entered into it at a young age.
I married my hubby at 19. He was 18. We are now 26 & 27. We have “grown up” together, learned to pay bills together, attended college together. Basically, instead of becoming adults and then adapting to each other’s ways, we became adults together. When you marry young, you end up learning a lot of things the hard way instead of learning with a safety net. We are expecting our third child now, and we LOVE having kids. Obviously not everyone is called to the vocation of marriage, but for those that are, it is amazing and wonderful. I wouldn’t change a thing.
If you are having doubts, it is possible that God is not calling you to marriage at this time. But if you are just looking for reinforcement, the vocation of marriage and family is sooo rewarding, and I personally am grateful that I entered into it at a young age.
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dixieagle
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Hmmm…a little judgmental here. So, the “rule” is that those who have their college educations paid for are “not as mature” and more “spoiled” than those who do not? Does that apply to those who receive full scholarships, as well? If not, why not?
As parents, my husband and I chose to fund our two daughters’ college educations and were glad to do so. They both earned scholarships of varying amounts, as well. Both girls worked part time, but no more than 10 hours weekly, as we wanted them to be able to concentrate on their studies, which we regarded as their primary responsibility. They are both about the least spoiled and most mature young women I know - generous, kind and giving, wonderful Catholics, one married to, the other engaged to, outstanding Catholic young men.
Though we did establish that you are not the very young college student that I assumed from other posts, you have a lot to learn about parenting and about the folly of making sweeping generalizations.
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Michael_Saint
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Don’t all parents say this about their children? Parents are always a little biased.
You mean you only had two children? Did you marry late too?
So you prove you are the exception. Congratulations. It’s not easy to be the exception, and one should take pride in that.
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dixieagle
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Michael, you are something else.
The reasons we “only had two children” are none of your business, and no, we did not marry late, but straight out of college.
Again, you make an unwarranted assumption that the “rule” is that young people whose parents paid for their education tend to be less mature and spoiled.
You should be so lucky as to meet a girl as outstanding, mature, and unspoiled as either of ours, but it won’t happen until you grow up a little, even if you are 30.
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Rach620
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It is up to my parents and no other human being to judge the value of a college education and what they will contribute to it. It is their own discernment. Michael Saint is not involved, even if he claims to know the ‘rules’ of parenting.
So you have seen some spoiled kids who had their college educations paid for. This does not a rule make. I’m not trying to “make myself out to be the exception”–I’m trying to say that there isn’t a rule when it comes to this. There are a variety of colleges out there, a variety of fields in which to study, and a variety of families. There are a variety of vocations to which young people are called, and sometimes that does indeed include an undergraduate education which is unimaginably expensive.
YOU are not in a position to categorically judge entire groups of people simply because you do not approve of what they have discerned as their own calling, or because you have a beef with their parents’ parenting practices.
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Rach620
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It is so strange to me that you always make these posts so personal.
My parents have paid for a good deal of my education. I have helped out where possible with scholarships, and will be paying to finish my degree after I am married (and therefore independent).
I would not have had the same rich educational experience if I were not able to dedicate myself fully to my studies with their financial help. I am incredibly grateful for their generosity, and always tell them so.
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Rach620
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That poster was talking about *himself *being “35 and half-dead” if he followed your guidelines for marriage. The way you have been talking–about rules and exceptions re: the best time to marry–would seem to indicate that you think *all *or *most *people should wait well into their 30s to marry. That’s what he seemed to be taking issue with.
Even with the example of saints, no hard and fast ‘rule’ for an age of marriage is or has been established in the Church. If anything, we see an enormous diversity–Mary, the Mother of God, became a wife and mother in her mid-teens, while others waited decades. God calls each of us to our own vocation. He has a plan for our lives which He discloses to us as He sees fit. Sometimes He guides us to places which we hadn’t ‘planned’ for, but that is His plan, nevertheless. Sometimes it’s an adventure
Seeing that the average age of first marriage in the US is well into the late 20s at this point (27 and 29, perhaps?), I really do not think that this is a problem. I have many friends who are marrying ‘young,’ and none of them are doing so out of a panic that they will never find someone. They have each prayerfully discerned that they are called to marriage with the other person. They do not see marriage as an ‘escape,’ but as a fulfillment. They listen to *Gaudium et Spes *and realize that they can only find themselves through a complete gift of themselves, and know that they personally are called to self-gift through marriage and family (even as others are called to self-gift through service).
Sure, the single life is a vocation. Some people are called to leave it for married life sooner than others, and some are called to commit themselves to it for life. Your warning here is good to take into account, but like many of your statements does not apply to every person seeking to live their Catholic Faith.
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Rach620
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Michael, your sarcasm and rudeness are too much. Apparently no one can measure up to the standards which you set.
I do hope you aren’t planning on going into apologetics; I doubt anyone would be attracted by your attitude. Charity and joy are what attract people to the *beauty *of the Catholic Faith (as Pope Benedict so eloquently reminded us during his trip to the US last week). Abrasive commentary just isn’t going to do it.
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bookgirl32
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I don’t think this is a problem. I think you DO try to see from the Catholic lense and quite often succeed. I think what happens is that you see these situations theoretically, how it SHOULD happen, and assume that because you can see it so clearly that there are no other impedements to these people DOING what you see so clearly. So, when people say, “You don’t have the experience”, they’re not telling you that you can’t know what or how to do it, they’re telling you that you’re ability to see it so clearly is not clouded by the problems that parents and married couples face in true experience. I’m not saying that any of these problems are a reason for the couples not to work hard and truly follow, but you wouldn’t be so quick to put forward this attitude of it all being “simple”, therefore giving you ground to be as judgemental. Is it not being simple an excuse for not doing it, no, but it is an excuse for understanding of the hardness of the situation, and how much actual work and difficulty it is to follow, that you’re not giving. Does that make sense?
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Michael_Saint
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I’ll take that as a tacit admission.
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Michael_Saint
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One can also fulfill his call to self-giving love through single life. Read Christopher West’s “Good News About Sex and Marriage” for more information on this point.
I guess you just don’t have the same life experience I do to see so many Catholic girls making bad choices in partners through impatience - guys that aren’t Catholic, guys that aren’t Christian, guys who “put on a good show” but aren’t really there spiritually, guys with addictions to alcohol, etc.
Plus, I know a lot of girls who either tell themselves or honestly believe that their friends who are in such and such relationship is good and make a poor judgment in the process. Women have that ability to fool themselves into thinking all kinds of crazy things. See Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s book “10 Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives” for more information on that point.
Either you just haven’t lived long enough to see this, or the people in your circle have it all together unlike I’ve ever seen anywhere else. Can you send me some of that water you people are drinking?
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